The present invention relates to devices for cleaning electrical contacts within computer or video game cartridge receptacles.
A variety of prior art devices have been provided for the cleaning, gauging, etc. of electrical contacts. Those of interest include the prior devices disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 1,554,117 to Moore, U.S. Pat. No. 3,807,012 to Semrad, U.S. Pat. No. 4,916,564 to Fritsch, and U.S. Pat. No. 3,141,270 to Ferrand.
The prior art of interest known to applicant relative to the cleaning of electrical contacts in receptacles of computers and video game devices are U.S. Pat. No. 4,663,686 to Freeman, et al., and U.S. Pat. No. 4,951,425 to Naghi. The Freeman device is a cleaning cartridge insertable into a computer receptacle for cleaning the contacts of a disk drive head, the cleaning cartridge being insertable into the receptacle and having a head wiper pad on a flat member and reciprocably movable transversely of the direction of cartridge insertion, by manual operation of a lever to clean the disk drive head.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,951,425 to Naghi relates to a cleaning cartridge for the cleaning of the electrical contacts of a printed circuit board within the cartridge receptacle of a video game device. The cartridge includes a flat planar board extending within a manually manipulable housing adapted to be slidably inserted into a female receptacle in a video game housing. A leading edge area of the flat board has thereon a commercially available film of abrasive lapping material. During insertion of the cartridge into the video game housing, the lapping film on the planar board comes into engagement with electrical contacts mounted within the video game housing to provide a cleaning action on the contacts. The specification of the patent indicates that the leading edge of the board has the same location and configuration as the leading edge of the board involved in playing a video game (column 3, lines 9 and 10 of the patent specification); the engagement between the board and the electrical contacts is the same during the cleaning operation as during the game playing operation. The effectiveness of the cleaning operation is therefore dependent solely upon the surface character of the board--i.e., the lapping film on the board.
The utilizing of a lapping or fine abrasive film on a conventional cartridge board is not conducive to thorough cleaning of electrical contacts. The engagement of the board with contacts is quite limited, so that only a minor portion of the debris is removed from the contacts. Further, the cleaning pressure is relatively slight, this being the same pressure which exists between the electrical contacts and the contact surfaces on the game board. Further, the sliding velocity of the cleaning board into the receptacle is relatively slow, so that abrasive action of the lapping film is relatively slight.
The present invention relates to a mechanism for cleaning opposed spaced electrical contacts in a computer or video game cartridge receptacle. A specially formed blade is slidably mounted in a manually manipulable housing. The leading edge of the blade has a plurality of projecting teeth thereon adapted to provide a scraping action on the electrical contact when the blade is moved back and forth. The teeth have sharp edges which ride along the surfaces of the electrical contacts to scrape debris from the contact surfaces. The stroke of the blade is relatively long, thus to provide a substantial cleaning action for each stroke. The teeth project from the general plane of the blade to deflect and spread the contacts apart substantially, thus producing relatively high engagement pressures between the cleaning teeth and the electrical contact surfaces, thereby producing increased cleaning effects. The mechanism produces a cleaning action superior to the action produced by such devices as that of U.S. Pat. No. 4,951.425.